Anora and The Substance are both films exploring the ways women are seen by the world but seem, at first, to be very different. The former, Sean Baker’s exquisitely profane Cinderella farce about a Brooklyn dancer who falls into a whirlwind marriage with a young oligarch, is set between the unglamorous worlds of strip clubs, Eastern European enclaves and Vegas mega casinos – worlds of gangsters and cocaine and vulgar excess.
Coralie Fargeat’s film, by contrast, is a visceral and provocative body horror, but it, too, is the story of a woman whose destiny is dictated by the desires of men. Actress-turned-TV fitness guru Elisabeth Sparkle lives in a vast hi-rise apartment decorated with enormous mirrors and gigantic posters of herself overlooking a sterile Los Angeles frozen in the 80s.
Demi Moore in The Substance (Photo: Mubi)
The Substance is a blunt, bad-taste satire of misogyny, ageism, and the consequences of impossible beauty standards. It’s heavy-handed and deliberate with its extreme concept and on-the-nose Hollywood critique. Every overblown frame reminds us that women are at the mercy of men and can do nothing to stop becoming invisible.
But however bold it is to turn the world’s very real, very present problems – ones experienced by its own 61-year-old star – into a silly, trashy horror film, the incessant gore ultimately makes ageing itself appear repulsive. It is intended as a feminist film. But it does little more than state the obvious and try to shock us with it over and over until its leading woman literally explodes into a puddle of gunge. Anora does something greater: it exposes the raw, complicated truth about women’s entrapment and allows us to recognise ourselves in it.
Emilia Pérez is insulting, ignorant trash - it does not deserve Oscars
Read MoreIt is a devastating close to a portrait, painted with such dignity and humility, of a scrappy heroine who tries not to fall victim to how men perceive and underestimate her, but does. It may not call itself “feminist” but its uncomfortable honesty lingers long after The Substance’s gore and gunge is washed away and forgotten.
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